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September Trip to Wisconsin

Actually, we made it to Minnesota, but only to get two caches at the visitor's center, which was a short but worthy stop. Anyway, I thought I'd show a map and a few caches some of you may want to add to your bucket list.

Covert Cache (Traditional)(Regular) (GC3798) by Director Phineas and Agents Socko and Illbegotten(3/1) (Milwaulkee, Wisconsin) - Firstly, I am not a big fan of urban caches, nor am I a big fan of caches at businesses. But this place is amazing and the spy theme fits right in with geocaching. If you're in the area, you are missing out if you pass this up. I think the difficulty might be more of a 4 or 4.5.

The Big Spring Thing (Virtual)(Virtual) (GCGBR5) by datum(1/1) (Manistique, Michigan's Upper Peninsula) - An amazing emerald spring 40 feet deep with a glass-bottomed raft you wheel out into the middle to view bubbling springs and hundreds of trout, some 36-40 inches or more. This is a like a fish hatchery, tatiatuk's Emerald Cache, and Dave & Gail's Bubbling Spring Cache rolled into one. There is an EarthCache here as well, in order to log it you need to test the PH of the water, so come prepared if you want to log that.

Eternal Flame Falls Earthcache (Earth)(Not chosen) (GC10VMY) by Szuchie and TWU(1/3) (North Boston, New York) - I think it was UMainah who originally told me about this site, and we were glad we went. How can you go wrong when you have a waterfall and fire at the same location? It would have been even better had there been more water over the falls, but that also makes it harder to access. We were able to get right to the flame - very neat spot.

Frankenmuth Veteran's Memorial (Virtual)(Virtual) (GCAC28) by ixist(1/1) (Frankenmuth, Michigan) - The cache is a very nice veteran's memorial but even more amazing is the entire town. Very clean with a Bavarian influence. If you like Christmas, there is a huge store there that looks like it's a theme park.

The Old Boneyard (Traditional)(Small) (GCG999) by ScouterMark(2/2) (Scottsville, New York) - If you are a lover of cemeteries, this one is a neat old one where the only public access is via a tunnel.

Lake Michigan has a lot of fossils, and there are a few caches at places where you can find them easily.

We found many nice caches over and above this list. We planned our caches using favorite points and were not displeased.

nice trip, but I would go through Canada, visiting the same states on your way back seems to me like a waste. How did you know which caches are really worth visiting?

We seriously considered going through Canada, all the way though North bay and into Michigan's Upper Peninsula via Sault Ste. Marie. But two of the goals of the trip were to pick up caches in two new states (WI and MN), and finish the caches for the Jasmer Challenge. We had three caches to find to meet the requirements for that, two were in Michigan, but one was in Erie, PA. And the 3 closest caches for the final for the Jasmer Challenge were MI, OH, and CT. Going through Canada did not provide the best route for us to do that. Given the option, I do like to take a different route out than back, and the route we took was quite varied despite not going through Canada.

Using the favorite points is a big part of choosing which caches have a better probability of being above average. With GSAK, this is fairly easy, you just download all caches around your route and see which ones have more favorite points. You also have to take the area and the cache into consideration - more populated areas and more publicized caches have more favorite points. If I am caching in Maine, I often filter for caches with 5 or more favorite points. In NY caches had more points, so I looked for caches with more than 10 points. If you don't use GSAK, you can sort a list of state caches on gc.com by favorite points and manually check to see if they are located near your route.

Even then, it helps to look at the higher rated caches and see if they seem interesting. When planning a long trip I also check sites like roadsideamerica.com and tourism sites to see if there is something interesting that there might be a cache near.

I also keep a GSAK database of bucket list caches that I would like to do some day. It includes caches placed on 2000, caches I hear about from other cachers, and waypoints of non-cache places I want to visit. When I go on a trip, I look at the database and see which ones I might be able to do on that particular trip, and add them to my database for the trip. One of the caches I'd most like to do on my list is Burro Schmidt (Traditional)(Regular) (GCF441) by TT&B and NCad(2/3). Seems like it could be fun...

The good part is, we've been there, we know it's worthy, we know where it is, how much of a hike it is to get to the falls (Which is not real bad), so if we are in the area and have the time we will surely check it out again. Plus, there's a cache there we DNF'd.

The problem lies in the fact I still have about 100 places on my list to do and seem to be adding to that list all the time!